Ed Schultz

Cenk Uygur's brief run as the 6 PM anchor on MSNBC has come to a close. The former 'Young Turks' web host left the network Wednesday after starting there in January. The parting of ways was, according to his own blistering account, mutual, and came after MSNBC executives told him to tone down his show because he was making "people in Washington" uncomfortable.

Uygur's video report about what went down in his final weeks at MSNBC is fairly dramatic. Despite improving on Ed Schultz's numbers when he occupied the 6 PM timeslot and besting CNN in June, Uygur paints a picture of network executives, including MSNBC President Phil Griffin, that were more concerned with reining in his brash, challenging, outsider style than ratings. The network offered him a high-paying job as a contributor when they moved him off the 6PM slot, Uygur said, but he turned it down.

"I do not blame them for trying to walk this one back," Colbert said. "Declaring your candidacy for president is supposed to be special. You only get to do it once. So you want to wait for that perfect journalist to share it with. Not just give it up for the first guy who asks. Certainly not to Morgan the Organ."

Ed Schultz has been garnering notoriety lately for his unabashedly over-the-top and often below-the-belt attacks on Republicans and conservatives.

Thursday on 'The Ed Show' (weekdays, 6 PM ET on MSNBC), Schultz turned his ire and verbal excess to President Obama, who he feels has betrayed the democratic base by not speaking out stronger against extending the Bush-era tax cuts for people making over $250,000 per year.

"The only people who can save the Democrats are a few tough progressive that are left in the house who have come to the conclusion that it won't be President Obama that moves the liberal agenda forward," Schultz opined. "(Obama) has basically been a turncoat to the base. Yes, Ed just said that. He has basically been a turncoat to the base."

Do our more progressive readers agree with Schultz's assessment? If so, let's agree that a proper punishment for the president's transgressions against liberalism might be forcing him to watch to a marathon of 'The Ed Show.'

Ultra-orthodox Rabbi Yehuba Levin was by the side of New York Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino when Paladino made his controversial anti-gay remarks. When Paladino later apologized for those remarks, Levin rescinded his endorsement of Paladino, which should give you a good idea of his perspective on things. Levin explained his change of heart on The 'Ed Show' (weekdays, 6 PM ET on MSNBC).

But, before doing so, he said this:

"Ed, thank you so much for having me. In the interest of full disclosure and transparency, you're not appearing with me in the same room, where I could punch you in the nose,' Levin told Schultz, while feigning a punch.

"You have me on some set where I feel like I am under concentration camp conditions . . . And I have this light shinning in my eyes. So let everybody know I'm arguing under affirmative action standards."

On the 'The Ed Show' (weekdays, 6 PM ET on MSNBC) Ed Schultz played a video clip of candidate for Maine governor Paul Lapage making a most unusual anti-tax point in front of what looks like a town hall meeting

"I don't know if you know this, but the state of Maine is the only state in the United States of America that charges sales tax on bull semen," Lapage said on the clip, before pausing for effect. "Did you hear that? Bull semen."

After the clip ended Schultz corrected LaPage, stating "Lapage is flat out wrong on this one, that particular substance has been exempt from sales tax since 2005." In other words, LaPage's claims about bull semen appear to be bullshit.

According to the AP and other sources, the 'One Nation' rally that Ed Schultz promoted did not draw as many people as Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally.

Schultz had previously stated that the crowd at Beck's rally was no big deal and predicted that he could organize a rally that drew as many. Faced with the evidence otherwise, Schultz turned to some sketchy math.

On 'The Ed Show' (weekdays, 6PM ET on MSNBC) Schultz proclaimed organizers of the 'One Nation' rally had estimated a crowd of 175,000 people. Then he compared that number to the average of two independent media estimates of Beck's rally, one at 87,000 people and another at 300,000 people.

"Pretty much, would you say that the size of the crowd is pretty much the same? I would," Schultz argued.

What Schultz didn't say is organizers always give an extremely high estimate of crowd size, as compared to any independent media organization. In fact, Beck estimated his crowd at 500,000.

The truth is, crowd sizes at rallies are notoriously hard to estimate. Schultz should have just told his audience that, rather than insult them with an embarrassingly transparent apples-and-oranges manipulation of numbers.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has received a lot attention for an incident in which he confronted a heckler during a campaign event for California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, and told the heckler that it is "people who yell and scream like you who are dividing this country."

Christie's reaction enraged the easily enrage-able Ed Schultz. On the 'The Ed Show' (Weekdays, 6 PM ET on MSNBC), Schultz made it clear he doesn't think Christie, a Republican, has any business telling anyone to be respectful, since Schultz believes Christie's policies have been damaging to American workers.

"What we are seeing out of this governor of New Jersey is just go to the money, cut whoever you have to cut, there is no ramification for any of this because he is cold-hearted fat slob anyway," Schultz ranted.

Right before this attack on Christie's girth, Schultz mentioned how he wouldn't be silenced in his fight for racially equality. So it is a bit ironic Schultz would then so quickly single out Christie for his physical appearance.

MSNBC shouter Ed Schultz likes nothing more than to use 'The Ed Show' (weekdays, 6PM ET on MSNBC) to highlight what he believes to be racism in the conservative movement. So he was obviously thrilled when he found a clip of former New York Senator Al D'Amato -- a Republican -- calling out GOP strategist Jack Burkman as racist.

In the clip, which comes from the Fox Business Network, D'Amato dresses Burkman down during a discussion of whether the United States Postal Service should be privatized.

"Most of these guys who work in the post office should be driving cabs," Burkman says in the clip. "And I think we should stop importing labor from Nigeria and Ethiopia, that's about the skill level."

"You are a nasty racist," D'Amato shot back, as Burkman's jaw dropped comically. "Let me just tell you that's a bunch of bull****. You should be ashamed of yourself and have your mouth washed out."

Burkman tried to explain himself, but D'Amato wasn't having it:

"Shut up, I listened to your racist bull****"

Oddly, both men were in agreement that the post office should be privatized.

Schultz hasn't said whether he'll run one way or the other but when he does, expect his booming voice to knock out a few car windows and the occasional fragile wine glass. Don't say we didn't warn you.

It's not that she's not talented, successful or funny. It's just an odd choice, putting a comedian on the show that takes its goal of crushing losers' dreams on live television so seriously. It would evoke the same reaction from me if they picked Andrew "Dice" Clay as the new judge, if the Diceman was talented, successful or funny.

And besides, why do they need humor and comedy on such an otherwise serious show? There are lots of humorless, vapid and downright boring shows that are crying out for comedic interjection.

This reporter was thinking just a little while back, that what this country needs is another intolerant political loud mouth on the airwaves. It doesn't matter what political party they call home -- R or D, liberal conservative. No TV viewer seems able to go more than a few minutes without having some self-important gas bag named Matthews or O'Reilly, sporting one ideology or another, raging at a camera.

Fortunately, MSNBC brings us another fix -- the emerging show from Air America personality Ed Schultz. Resembling a sort of square-headed Rush Limbaugh, Schultz's politics run more toward Keith Olbermann. But, let's face it: None of these guys are on TV to discuss sensible politics on either side of the aisle. They're on the air to pontificate, yell, scream and (in Schultz's case) have a borderline Network-ish nervous breakdown on camera every night.